Meta

Death & Garbage: If She Floats Part II

Diving to the most horrendous and sick claim; the rumors of murder make little sense given a far easier route (less expenditure, less chance of being found out) would have been for Courtney to leave Kurt on the floor of a Rome hotel room barely four weeks before he took his own life. She could have simply said “I woke up, he was there.” She didn’t. She called for help. That’s a core reality of the situation. Just over thirty days before Kurt’s death Courtney Love saved his life regardless of whether what he had been doing that night was suicide or an accident.

Those wishing to claim murder have to concoct a scenario in which, having gone to all the trouble of persuading Kurt to enter rehab, she waits until he’s on the loose and no one is positive where he is or where he’s going. Then, once he turns up, the killer stages a suicide scene. Frankly, if Courtney Love wanted Kurt Cobain dead then she (and the hired killer) would be no more or less likely to be found out whether he was gunned down inside the house, in the driveway, in the downstairs of the garage. She also, despite having a killer looking for him, hires a private detective, and has the Police looking for him — again, there’s no need to, he’s an adult after all. It would have been far easier to just hush things up then say “oh no! I thought he just needed some time and he’d come back” when the body turned up. She doesn’t. She acts like a scared lover and is frantic trying to find him.

The killer also, for some reason, goes to all the trouble of injecting Kurt as well as blasting him with the shotgun when just one would do. It’s unlikely the killer was too worried about Kurt’s pain levels and having got Kurt all the way up to the garage room there’s no need to subdue him in such a way with a whacking massive overdose, how did he even know Kurt had that much heroin around? Another lucky guess huh? That missing guy no one can find is found so easy and happens to have a load of heroin on him — how lovely. And, of course, we must remember we’re now looking for a double murderer because this killer, despite leaving everything here to chance, is such a perfectionist he decides to kill his victim twice. It’s brilliant to have a murderer so convenient he only does something to leave a nice clue!

The killer also takes the time to stick a pen through the note and leaves it in the dirt of a plant pot. There’s much made of the claim that the note was a resignation letter not a suicide note but the key point is why bother taking it at all? Someone would have either had to sit and watch Cobain write it out like this was some kinda school detention, or would have had to notice the freshly written page and decide to take it with them (as well as fetching Kurt’s own gun, fetching Kurt’s own drug paraphernalia, as well as the towels, a can of root beer…Did no one notice the removals van pulling up?) It’s an interesting idea, a killer taking the time to walk their victim round the house window-shopping for death scene paraphenalia. Or, hang on, was Kurt already up in the garage room with a suicide scene laid out and the killer decided it was unfair for Kurt to go before he’d had the chance to kill him?

It’s just very silly basically. Yeah, that mercenary killer left the $120 that no one knew Kurt had in his wallet to cover getting the garage steam-cleaned. That’s funny given the killer supposedly used Kurt’s credit card — he shuffled the easy money out of the way to take the card? And then, while still unsure if they’ve gotten away clean, the killer decides to wave a great big red flag at the authorities and use the card? I’m unsure why the idea that the killer bizarrely took Kurt’s credit card and then was dumb enough to use it should get more credit than the idea that it was just a delay in the bank’s systems or a technical glitch — errors happen. It all seems to rely on having a killer so incredibly cunning that he can get Kurt from house to garage undetected, with no struggle or attempts at resistance at any point, while carrying handfuls of stuff with them, stage an over-elaborate and unnecessary death scene…And who is simultaneously dumb enough to use a stolen card.

I’m fairly sure that, given her own band’s album was due out the same week, maybe Courtney Love had other things on her mind than killing the father of her child. She could, after all, have chosen any time she wished so choosing to coordinate an assassination at the same time as an album release seems unlikely. Rather than benefitting her career, Kurt’s death prevented her band capitalizing on the release of their album. Kurt’s death was also directly responsible for her erratic performances over the next year and left her a single mother caring for a very young child. Yet her issues across that next year have been considered more as signs of instability rather than as indications of grief. Again, I’m not saying Courtney helps herself but she deserves more credit.

The real problem here is that, as with the demise of The Beatles, there’s an apparent unwillingness to criticize or believe bad things of heroes. Instead the myth of the devil woman comes into play. Even the fact that Kurt and Courtney may have ended up divorced, the fact that they had fights, doesn’t make them any more exceptional than millions of other couples in their twenties — it happens. That my hero (your hero) could be a bit of an asshole in person, one with a severely depressive side, one with extensive and well-documented problems psychologically, physically, professionally, doesn’t detract from the beauty I find in his life and works. For some it seems to be too much to believe that Kurt Cobain wanted to die.

Given Kurt Cobain’s obvious adoration of Courtney Love I find it sad that people can simultaneously claim to be Kurt’s fans while refusing to respect either his choice of partner, his statements on the subject, or even the fact that his band’s final studio album dripped with anger at how poorly she’d been treated. The fact ‘fans’ would continue that vendetta beyond his death is a tragedy. I’ll give the ultimate word to Kurt Cobain himself. “A big ‘fuck you’ to those of you who have the audacity to claim that I’m so naive and stupid that I would allow myself to be taken advantage of and manipulated.”